Thank God Trump Brokered a Ceasefire. That’s the Last Thing Mark Levin Wanted.

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Tucker Carlson Show Episode: Thank God Trump Brokered a Ceasefire. That’s the Last Thing Mark Levin Wanted.
Release Date: June 24, 2025
Host: Tucker Carlson
Guest: Clayton Morris

---

Introduction

In this episode of The Tucker Carlson Show, host Tucker Carlson engages in a comprehensive and impassioned dialogue with Clayton Morris, a former Fox News colleague. The conversation delves deep into the intertwined roles of mainstream media and government in shaping public opinion, particularly concerning foreign policy and warfare. The duo critically examines the media's historical and ongoing influence in promoting and sustaining conflicts for profit and influence.

---

Main Discussion Topics

1. Media as a Driver for War

Clayton Morris opens the discussion by lamenting how major news networks like CNN and MSNBC have historically pushed pro-war narratives, drawing parallels to media strategies used during the early 2000s to justify military interventions.

“It’s almost like they grabbed their manual from 2002 and started pushing the same pro-war rhetoric again.” (01:03)

Tucker Carlson concurs, highlighting his own past involvement in what he describes as a "propaganda effort" during his tenure at CNN, emphasizing the media’s role in manufacturing consent for wars.

“That’s called news coverage, Clayton.” (02:01)

2. Lack of Dissenting Voices in Media

Both hosts express frustration over the absence of anti-war perspectives in mainstream media. Morris cites studies showing a significant majority of media guests were pro-war, with minimal representation of dissenting opinions.

“In a study, 67% of guests were pro-war across all major networks.” (03:43)

Carlson echoes this sentiment, noting that questioning the official narrative often leads to accusations of being unpatriotic or having ulterior motives.

“If you’re anti this attack on Iran, that’s the new message now, then you’re unpatriotic.” (19:46)

3. Personal Experiences with Media Propaganda

Morris shares his experiences at Fox News, detailing how questioning military actions or foreign interventions was discouraged, often leading to professional repercussions. He recounts instances where he was reprimanded for expressing skepticism about military engagements.

“We can't ask questions. If you ask questions, that’s an endorsement of that position.” (09:07)

Carlson adds his perspective, recalling how he was compelled to adhere to media talking points and faced backlash when deviating from them, particularly regarding assessments of foreign threats.

“I flew into rage watching this coverage... People didn’t vote for this.” (02:48)

4. The Profit Motive Behind War Coverage

The hosts discuss how wars are highly profitable for media networks, citing a dramatic increase in ad revenue following the onset of conflicts, such as the Iraq War.

“In Q1 2002, Fox's revenue skyrocketed by 150% when the war started.” (50:05)

Morris criticizes the media for prioritizing profits over truthful reporting, suggesting that the relentless promotion of war narratives is driven by financial incentives.

5. Critique of 'Wokeness' and Identity Politics

Both Carlson and Morris vehemently oppose what they describe as "wokeness" in the media, equating it to rigid identity politics that stifle genuine discourse and promote divisiveness.

“We can’t have a strong Libya that serves its own self-interests... It’s the same as the military industrial complex control.” (53:01)

They argue that labeling dissenting opinions as "woke" or "anti-Semitic" serves to discredit and marginalize critics without addressing the substance of their arguments.

6. Foreign Policy and U.S. Involvement Abroad

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on U.S. foreign policy, particularly interventions in the Middle East. Morris and Carlson critique the motivations behind U.S. actions in countries like Iran, Syria, and Libya, suggesting they are driven by the military-industrial complex and alliances with countries like Israel.

“Why aren't they attacking Norway?” (73:14)
“We’re defending freedom together.” (73:14)

They contend that these interventions serve to enrich defense contractors and maintain American influence, often neglecting domestic issues such as homelessness and economic instability.

7. Decline of Cable News and Changing Media Landscape

Morris predicts the imminent collapse of traditional cable news, citing declining viewership among younger generations who prefer digital platforms like TikTok and YouTube. He believes the aging cable audience is no longer sustainable, leading to a transformative shift in how news is consumed.

“The cable news audience is dying... they’re getting older and not being replaced.” (35:42)

Carlson adds that the current era marks the end of an age of massive salaries and influence within the media industry, suggesting that the future will see a fragmented and less influential news landscape.

8. Personal Reflections and Future Outlook

Towards the end of the episode, both hosts reflect on their past roles within the media and express a sense of disillusionment with the current state of broadcast journalism. Morris discusses his voluntary departure from Fox News, seeking a more balanced and truthful discourse, while Carlson shares his departure from television and his feelings of regret over his past participation in media propaganda.

“I felt like while I was there, I was able to... but now I see it's collapsing.” (37:54)
“I was spurned for talking to Trump, and now I'm pissed off.” (74:35)

They both express pessimism about the future of media integrity but maintain a commitment to seeking and broadcasting truth through alternative platforms.

---

Notable Quotes

• Clayton Morris:
  “It’s almost like they grabbed their manual from 2002 and started pushing the same pro-war rhetoric again.” (01:03)
  “In a study, 67% of guests were pro-war across all major networks.” (03:43)
  “We can't ask questions. If you ask questions, that’s an endorsement of that position.” (09:07)

• Tucker Carlson:
  “That’s called news coverage, Clayton.” (02:01)
  “If you’re anti this attack on Iran, that’s the new message now, then you’re unpatriotic.” (19:46)
  “I felt like while I was there, I was able to... but now I see it's collapsing.” (37:54)

---

Conclusion

This episode of The Tucker Carlson Show presents a critical examination of the symbiotic relationship between mainstream media and governmental interests in perpetuating conflicts. Through personal anecdotes and historical analysis, Tucker Carlson and Clayton Morris argue that media propaganda has long served to justify and profit from wars, while marginalizing dissenting voices. They express concern over the decline of traditional cable news and emphasize the need for truthful, independent reporting. The conversation underscores their disillusionment with current media practices and their dedication to uncovering and presenting the truth amidst widespread misinformation.

---

Disclaimer: This summary is based on a provided transcript and aims to encapsulate the key points and discussions from the episode. It reflects the views and opinions expressed by the speakers within the podcast.

Transcript

[Clayton Morris]

You know that one friend who somehow.

[Tucker Carlson]

Knows everything about money? Yeah. Now imagine they live in your phone. Say hey to Experian, your big financial friend. It's the app that helps you check your FICO score, find ways to save, and basically feel like a financial genius. And guess what? It's totally free.

[Clayton Morris]

So go on, download the Experian app.

[Tucker Carlson]

Trust me, having a BFF like this.

[Clayton Morris]

Is a total game changer.

[Tucker Carlson]

Clayton Morris, ladies and gentlemen. We worked together at Fox News. You were there 10 years. You've since gone on to be a lot more successful than either one of us that was at Fox and I think a lot happier. And congratulations. No one gets out of it alive except you and me. Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's great to beat the odds. We both did. But is it weird to look at your former employer you spent a decade with, working for them and see them as like a prime driver for war?

[Clayton Morris]

It's not weird when, if you look at history right to me, when I started watching over the past few weeks, this drumbeat for war, I started seeing. It's almost like they went to their shelf and they grabbed their book, their manual, they got it off, they dusted it off. Like, what did we do back in 2002? What have we done before that successfully worked and pushed people, an entire populace, along with CNN and msnbc, towards war. They flipped open the pages. They, you know, they skipped. They skipped the preamble because they already knew you know what to do. And they started lining up every show with the same rhetoric. They started putting up the TVs where they would stand and get up with their big pencils and their fingers on the board. Here's where they're going to attack. These are the bases almost giving, like telegraphing military moves. It's from the same playbook, so it's not stunning.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's called news coverage, Clayton.

[Clayton Morris]

That's news, right? Is it supporting the news? Where is the journalism? I don't understand it, but it is, particularly this weekend. I became enraged this weekend. I'm not one to get enraged. Unless my kids leave their shoes in the kitchen or one of my eight year old steals my phone charger. That's when I fly into a rage. I don't even get road rage. Like I'm a pretty even keeled person, very even keeled.

[Tucker Carlson]

I can confirm that things could be.

[Clayton Morris]

Happening all around me. And I, you know, I just, I kind of, you know, float along. I got enraged this weekend watching this coverage and almost breathlessly, as soon as There was this announcement that Trump had authorized this bombing of these nuclear sites. It was, it was almost as if like the hosts on these shows were like grabbing an American flag. And anyone who opposed this was unpatriotic. And this was the most spectacular, amazing American moment in history. He'll go down like Reagan and Thatcher, you know, attempting to bring down communism. Everyone tried to do this for decades. Trump is the only one that could do it. I just, you know, one of the hosts, I just got off the phone with Trump a few minutes ago and he said, their entire nuclear program has been decimated. It's done. And I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. The ba. People didn't vote for this.

[Tucker Carlson]

No.

[Clayton Morris]

And to see these networks pushing this coverage and it's not just Fox, it's cnn, it's msnbc. And they're all right back to their playbook because it's so incredibly profitable. I mean, just like follow the money on all of this. So if we wind, I mean, contextually here, I don't know how much of your audience is aware of what happened in 2002, 2003. We were sort of in that world at the time. You much more than me at that.

[Tucker Carlson]

Time, but I was part of the propaganda effort. Yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

And you were you at msnbc?

[Tucker Carlson]

I was at cnn, the most trusted name in news. This is cnn.

[Clayton Morris]

This is cnn. So. And you can't. The American media was all in lockstep and you know that there were almost no dissenting voices allowed on the network news. Let me repeat that. There were almost no dissenting voices allowed on those shows across the board. Msnbc, we learned, had a two for one booking, official booking plan that meant two pro war voices for every one anti war voice. But across the board, I mean, shows.

[Tucker Carlson]

So that they actually were explicit about that.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. I mean, producers who worked for, for instance. I'm getting ahead of myself here because I'm just so.

[Tucker Carlson]

That's all right, that's all right. I mean, people, this is not a debate over the next budget agreement. This is not a debate even over, you know, boys and girls, sports. This is a debate over the future of the world and millions of people could die. That's not a crazy concern. And so, yeah, this really matters. I think it's fair to be worked up about it.

[Clayton Morris]

But I'm just trying to be level headed as much as I can be. So I'm just going to look at the. I just want to talk about the facts here because I've looked, I was, I studied this Very, very closely at the time. I was infuriated at it by the time when George W. Bush would get up there and tell us, you know, why they attack. You know, it's because they hate why they hate us. It's because they hate our freedoms. I mean, my bullshit meter, when, as soon as he said those words, I just wanted to scream at the television back then, they don't hate us because of our freedoms. That's just garbage. Why aren't they going? Why aren't they attacking Norway?

[Tucker Carlson]

I went on cnn. Well, I repeated that as well, for sure. And I kind of believed it. And then I went over to the region right after 9 11. And then a year later, I made the mistake of reading Osama bin Laden's manifesto on cnn. Not an endorsement of Osama bin Laden, obviously.

[Clayton Morris]

Right. But it's news.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, I just think it's important to know why people do things. You can disagree completely, but I think it's important to be honest about other people's motives. And so I read this and maybe it's all made up or whatever. Can you trust Osama bin Laden? No, But I think. Do I like Osama bin Laden? No, obviously. But I'm an American. But I think it's important to know at least what he said about why he did it and the two reasons. There are a number of reasons, but the two big ones were you've got U.S. forces on the Saudi Peninsula, two holy, most holy cities in Islam, Mecca, Medina. Like, that's offensive to me.

[Clayton Morris]

In his backyard.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, well, right, He's Saudi. But also, it's just like. Yeah, symbolically offensive. I get it. I don't agree. But it's important to know that. And by the way, the US Military moved its base out of Saudi Arabia after that. So, like, they took it seriously. Okay. It's, you know, unnecessarily provocative. And the second reason was you're on critical support of Israel. So I read this on the air at cnn.

[Clayton Morris]

Whoa, whoa.

[Tucker Carlson]

Shouldn't have done that. I was immediately denounced as an anti Semite. What?

[Clayton Morris]

Okay, like you're reading Osama bin Laden's words and you are an anti Semite.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, I mean, I got completely slammed by some group. I can't remember the name of it. I was shocked by it. But I'm not endorsing Osama bin Laden that despised Osama bin laden. He murdered 3 million Americans or 3,000Americans. So whatever. You were not allowed to deviate from the talking points. I mean, I experienced that. Right, like, for real.

[Clayton Morris]

No, you're not.

[Tucker Carlson]

You have to just nod along and be like, yeah, okay.

[Clayton Morris]

I mean, if you think about how ridiculous that is, you know, I had to read Mein Kampf in college. Right. We still read Hitler's words to understand the move towards a final solution. Understanding blood, all of that. It's written in his own book. So you can understand what. Where he got to with this. It's important to understand.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

Historically, I agree. I don't endorse Hitler.

[Tucker Carlson]

I don't think so.

[Clayton Morris]

By the way.

[Tucker Carlson]

I'm with you on that, Clayton.

[Clayton Morris]

Glad we agree on that. We do. By the way, I read that book in my History of the Holocaust class. You know who was taught? I had a Jewish professor at the University of Pittsburgh. It was an incredible class.

[Tucker Carlson]

But it's crazy to think the country's become so irrational, partly because of training from cable news that knowing something is considered the same as endorsing it.

[Clayton Morris]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

And what it really is is an attempt to control your mind, control what you believe by limiting your access to information. That's really what it is.

[Clayton Morris]

Also, what I find so offensive about at least cable news now is maybe it's always been this way. I think it probably has. But it's incurious. We can't ask.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Clayton Morris]

We can't ask questions. And if you ask questions, that's an endorsement of that position. So, like we hit these nuclear targets. I would never. If I were still on there, and I raised the question with a guess, like, how do we know we actually destroyed anything with these nuclear targets? Don't ask that question. You better not ask that question.

[Tucker Carlson]

You may have heard about a recent proposal to finally protect Americans their privacy from data brokers, from theft of your data. It's needed badly. Every day, tech vultures collect information about everything you're doing online and they sell it to the highest bidder. Obviously, this should be illegal. It's not illegal. The new proposal being shot down ensures you're not going to be protected anytime soon. And that's why you still need ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is an app that encrypts and reroutes all 100% of your online Internet traffic through secure servers. That makes it impossible for third parties to track what you're doing online and sell your information to others. And you can really trust ExpressVPN. The systems are built to wipe user data with every reboot. They've never shared customer information because they can't. They don't even collect it. Plus their identity defender add on which is completely free. In the United States will request that your data is removed from databases across the Internet. You can get an extra 4 months of ExpressVPN for free when you use our link. Scan the QR code on the screen now or go to expressvpn.comtucker and get four extra months of ExpressVPN. It's expressvpn.comtucker. do you think that if you still worked at Fox, by the way, you were not fired from Fox, Just for the record.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

This is all available online, but people don't know your backstory. You were not fired from Fox. You're one of the only people I ever met who left voluntarily.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So, yeah, true, true.

[Clayton Morris]

I was there for 10 years. They were great to me. I love, you know, the people were fantastic to me. But it was time to not wake up at three in the morning and do that show anymore. I was tired of, like, personal attacks and, you know, all of that. And I didn't get to see my kids on the weekend. And I was done. So. And I said, you know what? I'm moving on from this. And I had been in morning television for like 20 years. You know how miserable that is.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yes.

[Clayton Morris]

That people get cancer regularly. I mean, this is a fact. You work the night shift like that you, like, you pretty much can bank on getting cancer. You know, it's like, well, I just got fat.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah. No, I mean, it's incredibly hard physically. Yeah. Everything about it is. Hardest job I ever had. So I get. But you didn't leave. They didn't force you to leave.

[Clayton Morris]

No.

[Tucker Carlson]

You left on the terms you just described. They were nice to me. I want to go do something else. That never happens. I just want people to have that conversation.

[Clayton Morris]

No, they were great to me. Thank you. And I said, I'm going to leave this. And then they actually said, well, what if we gave you your own show? And I said, no, I appreciate that, but thank you. But they were great. They were great. And we parted ways on great terms and that was it. And I felt like while I was there, I was able to. I think I would get side eyes from people. But when I would question, like the military industrial complex, like, I'm sorry, like, why are we spending this? At the time was like $600 billion a year on a military industrial complex budget. And all of these, like a Boeing, Northrop Grumman, they build factories in everyone's backyard. So all the members of the House of Representatives, every member of the Senate has like, oh, well, I've got Boeing in my Backyard. Oh, that's interesting because that's intentional. There's all of these military production facilities in your backyard. So it's always in your backyard. And I just became furious about. I've always been furious about that. I've always had a problem with that. And so occasionally I would ask those questions of guests on the show and I could tell, like it was not a favorable question to be asking about.

[Tucker Carlson]

The military industrial didn't like it.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. You know, you knew and you knew there's a, there's a lot of unsaid things. Right. So I don't exactly, you know, and I don't know where it comes from. Maybe the top. I don't know. I work the morning. So I was kind of in and out of there and I didn't really have like a lot of interaction with like suits. You know, I wasn't one of those types of people. But you knew that when you were given sort of like, this is what we're covering on the show today. I don't see anything here about $800 billion, like in a defense budget or. I don't see anything in here on our show. We've got a four hour show, but we can't ask questions about did we actually hit nuclear weapons or did we actually hit. Is there anything in fordo when we hit it? I don't see, you know, I don't see any of that in here. So you knew what sort of the agenda would be for the day.

[Tucker Carlson]

Did you ever know?

[Clayton Morris]

But no one ever told me what to say. You know, I just want to be clear.

[Tucker Carlson]

But it's, it's like you show up, I'm being disingenuous because I had the same job that you had. So I know the answer to this question. But it's just people may not understand how this works. So you show up and like, everything's prepared for you.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So it's not a matter of telling you what to say or what not to say. It's all kind of written down. You're guided in a certain direction. Just.

[Clayton Morris]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

Did you ever figure out who was making those decisions?

[Clayton Morris]

I didn't, no. Did you? Because again, I was a. I considered myself. I never really got along with like the suits types. You know, I get uncomfortable, I think, in that environment. You know, if I have to wear a suit, I cannot wait to take it off, you know, So I, I don't know those people. I, I don't have dinner with those people. If I have to see them occasionally to kind of talk about something. It's incredibly uncomfortable for me. So. No, but. So I don't have the answer to that I could assume, but maybe you have a better clarity.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, no, no, I know where they come. It comes from the family that owns it for sure. I mean, I watched it. I did have dinner with suits a lot.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, but you knew that world so much better.

[Tucker Carlson]

Come from a suit world. Yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

But. Yeah, no, the Murdochs made those decisions. Who I really like to this day, I like the Murdochs, but not against the Murdochs, but it's just a fact that they did do that. And. And. And they overruled their people on questions of war. I remember. I think it was 2002. I'm pretty sure it was 2012. Roger Ailes was running it. Wonderful man. Wonderful man. Flawed guy, but wonderful. I really liked him and admired him personally. Others disagree, but I still feel it. But anyway, he had this guy called Andrew Napolitano, Judge Knapp. Did you ever run into him?

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

What a nice guy. Just a really nice guy, like everyone liked.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, he was great.

[Tucker Carlson]

I still really like him a lot. But anyway, he had this show, I think it was called Judging Freedom maybe.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. And he's more of a libertarian, I would say.

[Tucker Carlson]

Exactly. He was hired as a libertarian. Well, he's a strict libertarian. He's an absolute constitutional, like, stay out.

[Clayton Morris]

Of other countries 100%.

[Tucker Carlson]

He's. Yeah, he's kind of a more erudite Thomas Massie.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

Same basic politics. Not a hater at all. Just a nice man. But anyway, he made some anti war noises on his show and. And basically said, you know, why are we supporting all these other countries? Like, why are we doing this? Whoa. He lost his show over it. And a bunch of people came to Roger Ailes. I remember I talked to him about it at the time and demanded that he fire Judge Napolitano over this.

[Clayton Morris]

Wow.

[Tucker Carlson]

And. And ultimately they just stripped him of his show, but kept him around as a contributor for another four or five years, as I remember. I may be getting some of the details wrong, but I. But that's basically what happened. They took a show away.

[Clayton Morris]

I always wondered what happened.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, my gosh.

[Clayton Morris]

He was like, I. I loved watching that show.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, it was great. It's interesting, too. He's really smart. Oh, man. They. And I remember thinking, oh, that's the red line. They don't care if you get up there and you're like, I think, you know, whatever. Some controversial racial opinion, or they'd be like, that's a little Hot. Maybe not. Don't go there. You express, you know, an opinion about our foreign policy that they don't like, we're done now. Like, they are totally serious about that.

[Clayton Morris]

Well, you knew Roger Ailes used to watch our show religiously on the weekend because he was home. And the joke was, well, if you own a network or you run a network, what do you do on the weekend once you wake up and have coffee? You watch your shows, you know, so it was a joke that he would watch our Fox and Friends weekend show more than just about any other show on the network because. Because it was Saturday morning, he was waking up with coffee. So he would call into the booth all the time about a graphic being wrong. He was very, very cautious. But no one ever told me what to say or anything. There was one time where I criticized Mark Zuckerberg and I called him a scumbag on the air fair. And I got a talking to about that. We don't use the term scumbag. And I was like, oh, I'm from Philly. I thought that was like, that's kind of like, that's how you talk, you know, I'm sorry. No. We have moms and with their children. When you use the word scumbag, I'm like, okay, got it. I'll refrain from calling Zuckerberg a burger scumbag. But, I mean, it makes sense to me. I. I never hit that red line in that way because as you pointed out, you're being guided a certain way. So all of the segments, for those of your viewers that don't understand, like, you know, you have a card, you'd have like a packet, you know, of maybe like 10 articles regarding the segment you're about to do. And every segment's like four minutes long. So you and I can talk for two hours. Every segment is like four minutes long. Then you've got a commercial break, and you might have two guests during that time. So you're. Maybe it's a debate. Can you really have a debate in four minutes?

[Tucker Carlson]

No.

[Clayton Morris]

So you have a debate and always the other person's always sort of. Sort of set up for failure to begin with anyway, but. And you're sort of guided in what their positions are. You know, that John Smith, he believes this, and, you know, Sarah whatever knows that believes this, and you kind of go from there. If you deviate from that, that's when you have problems. So you're guided through the whole day like that. And that's why this weekend, when we were watching this coverage, I Was not surprised as they would sort of hand off coverage from show to show to show to show. It's all the same, Trump.

[Tucker Carlson]

All the same.

[Clayton Morris]

Trump did the most amazing thing ever. He carried out. He destroyed Iran's nuclear infrastructure. This is amazing. Oh, and by the way, if you're anti. If you're anti this attack on Iran, that's the new message now, then you're unpatriotic.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, you're pro Iran.

[Clayton Morris]

You're pro Iran.

[Tucker Carlson]

You're pro Iran.

[Clayton Morris]

You were never maga. You are. You're. You're pro Islamic terror.

[Tucker Carlson]

You're a bigot. It just reminds me so much of Black lives matter in 2020. Oh, yeah, we're on the other side, of course. I certainly was. And Fox was generally. They don't want to talk about it. They were kind of pro Black Lives Matter, actually, if I'm being totally honest. But I was completely opposed to it from day one just because I thought it was irrational and destructive and stupid. But it's the same impulse. It's like this hysteria sweeps over America fanned by the media. Fox being a big part of that. The biggest media. And anyone who disagrees is just written off as a hater. Like, they go right to motive. Oh, you must be taking money from a foreign power. You must hate this or that group. There's no, like, even attempt to engage with what you're saying. It's like this. Write you off. Just like it's. It's the same as. Shut up.

[Clayton Morris]

Racist, Right? You can't ask questions about Black Lives Matter being a corrupt organization, stealing money, which is. You know, you're a racist. How dare you ask that question? It's Black Lives Matter. We literally paint Black Lives Matter on intersections. Like, how dare you.

[Tucker Carlson]

I know.

[Clayton Morris]

Talk about. The folks that are running it are actually stealing money. It's a corrupt organization. You can't. You can't bring that up.

[Tucker Carlson]

We're sorry to say it, but this is not a very safe country. Walk through Oakland or Philadelphia. Yeah, good luck. So most people, when they think about this, want to carry a firearm, and a lot of us do. The problem is there can be massive consequences for that. Ask Kyle Rittenhouse. Kyle Rittenhouse got off in the end, but he was innocent from the first moment. It was obvious on video. And he was facing life in prison anyway. That's what the anti gun movement will do. They'll throw you in prison for defending yourself with a firearm. And that's why a lot of Americans are turning to burner. It's A proudly American company, Burna makes self defense launchers that hundreds of law enforcement departments trust. They've sold over 600,000 pistols, mostly to private citizens who refuse to be empty handed. These pistols, and I have one, fire rock hard kinetic rounds or tear gas rounds and peppered projectiles and they stop a threat from up to 60ft away. There are no background checks. There are no waiting periods. Burner can ship it directly to your door. You can't be arrested for defending yourself with a Burna pistol. Visit burnaby r n a.com or your local sportsman's warehouse to get yours today. Burna.com what's so hilarious? And I guess I shouldn't be surprised because they always accuse you of being exactly the way that they themselves are is anyone who asks questions or disagrees is woke. Now, if you notice this, the woke, right? So you're like, I'm not sure that we should have a war with Iran right now. And like, seem like there are a lot of problems here and like people I know are dying of drug ODs. Shut up, racist. You're woke. It's like, wait, what? Or people who are clearly working on behalf of a foreign country accuse you of working on behalf of a foreign country. It's so amazing because, well, so many.

[Clayton Morris]

Of these were former left wing.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

That's the thing, right? So these neocons, let's be honest, right, they were left wing.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

So they have now taken the moral high ground to tell me that I'm part of the woke, right? Because I don't want us to intervene in a foreign. So I guess by that measure then George Washington is a member of the woke, right? In his farewell address telling the nation we shouldn't intervene in foreign affairs of other countries.

[Tucker Carlson]

So I thought wokeness was a euphemism for engaging in identity politics. It's identity politics. What matters most is your identity, right? Ethnic, religious, whatever, racial. The people who are using the term woke, right, Are practicing like the most vicious kind of identity politics I've ever seen. It makes the Black Lives Matter people seem like amateurs, which they are, of course. I mean, this is serious identity politics. Like, you disagree, you're a Nazi, right? Like, what's that but identity politics?

[Clayton Morris]

Well, and it's also being described as like, insidious, like you're not aware that you're anti Semitic. You're so anti Semitic now. Like, Tucker, I don't know if you know, just the way that you dress today is now anti Semitic or just.

[Tucker Carlson]

It'S unconscious bias, right?

[Clayton Morris]

I mean, I literally heard.

[Tucker Carlson]

Did you just hear this five years ago from the left? And now you don't. You're racist without knowing it. You don't need to have to be aware of your bad attitudes. You just exude them.

[Clayton Morris]

We heard this five years ago from the left. And literally driving here, I heard it on Glenn Beck's radio show. Glenn Beck said the exact same thing. And I like Glenn Beck.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, I love Glenn.

[Clayton Morris]

He's an amazing. But he said most people. Now it's sort of a saw. I don't know his exact wording. Glenn, don't be mad at me. But it was like, he'll admit it, that we're now, it's. It's like an insidious. We'd be like a sort of soft anti Semitism that people are. Now. They just. Without really consciously being aware of it, they've become anti Semitic.

[Tucker Carlson]

So it's, it's, it's the same thing. It's. It's exactly. We're gonna. We're gonna need to be deprogrammed.

[Clayton Morris]

But we've been so heavily programmed by the mainstream media with wall to wall coverage. You're not getting any perspective from the Middle east, you're not getting any perspective from Iran, you're not getting any perspective from that side of it. All of the guests that you'll have on television are all pro Israel. And this is right out of that same playbook from 2002. So if you look at the data on this, I find this fascinating. And again, this is where I'm trying not to be emotional, but I'm trying to just look at the data after 2002, and I came at this from like a personal perspective and not to talk about me, but like, my, my brother was in the first Gulf War, and he went in with the Navy SEALs before anyone else. He was in Baghdad. So he was there basically directing Tomahawk missile attacks at himself. You know, he could. Flying right over his head, essentially.

[Tucker Carlson]

He was in Baghdad.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. So we would send like, care packages and things like that. But of course, we were all told at the time, tie a yellow ribbon around your tree. You remember the, the black and white images of, of Wolf Blitzer with a little helmet on, you know, talking about how great this was to, you know, to, to stop. To, to stop Saddam Hussein. So we watched all that happen. I forget how long that lasted. Was like 11 months or something like that. I forget.

[Tucker Carlson]

Ish. Ish.

[Clayton Morris]

So then 2002 rolls around, and here we go again. And now the playbook Was set.

[Tucker Carlson]

Is your brother out by this point?

[Clayton Morris]

No, he wasn't out at this point. He was still in, he was still in the Navy, but he didn't have to deal with this part of it. So more of like a. A landlubber I guess, you know, at that, at that point. But then he was in Afghanistan, so he's had a long history of like having to deal with this. But so I saw if you looked at the media analysis at the time, like 2002 into 2003, like we're attacked on September 11th. I maintain a massive false flag operation, but you do you, you know, but I, I absolutely, absolutely believe it was a catalyst to get us into these forever wars. Shut up. Don't ask questions about it. You'll be painted as, you know, a truth or whatever.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, we can't declassify those documents.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, so whatever.

[Tucker Carlson]

Whose country is this, by the way? I was under the impression it was partly mine. I thought it was a shareholder here. Born here. I'm a citizen. Why don't I have the right to know? I don't understand. I know someone who died on 9 11. I spent years of my life responding to it professionally. So did other members of my family. And I don't have a right to see the documents because. Tell me how that works.

[Clayton Morris]

Well, you know, William Randolph Hearst made us sure that we couldn't know the truth. I mean when I go back even further into history with the media narratives being how everything is being framed. I mean we look at, remember the main, the reason we went to war with Spain, you know, front pages of the Hearst papers, the New York Journal at the time, I think.

[Tucker Carlson]

Journal American.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. So the playbook was set. And after, after 911 these networks, all of the major news networks started the drumbeat for war. Cbs, NBC, ABC and PBS news, they started their nightly newscasts every night would have guests just about. They were all pro war, go take out Saddam Hussein. I think when they did the analysis, the fair, the FAI R report at the time looked at just the nightly newscasts, 393 of their guests. Out of those three of them, just three of them were anti war and like moderately anti war. Not like you or me on there. It's like eh, maybe we shouldn't. Only three of them. And that was just the nightly newscasts like the, the shows that most people don't even watch anyway. You know, the 6:30 nightly newscasts, the Tom Brokaw era. But then, then Colin Powell, you know, goes before Congress and he holds up that fake anthrax vial and Pushes us to war in Iraq and says that he has mobile biological weapons labs. We can't really find them, so they're mobile. We got to go in there. It's a threat to the region, of course, it's a threat to Israel. The network, the cable news channels. Then that was when they did the really exhaustive study of the cable news channels. And I found this fascinating that I think it was like 1600. I might be off by like a few, but it's like 1600 guests. They analyzed during that time after Colin Powell sat before Congress and essentially lied, I think unknowingly lied that this was a threat. Sixteen hundred of the guests there were. It was like 67% of the guests were pro war on, across CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, all of the networks. All of the networks. The Brit Hume show on Fox, the Wolf Blitzer show on cnn, almost overwhelmingly all pro war. MSNBC at the time, then fired Phil Donahue, canceled his show because he was very much in the Judge Napolitano, like, maybe we shouldn't be going to war. So MSNBC fired him, canceled his show and replaced it with a show called Countdown Iraq. Countdown Iraq. So they fire Phil Donahue, who was vehemently anti war. And he was asking questions about this. Why are we doing this? Why should we be doing this? This seems like it's a boondoggle. It's a lie. Maybe we should be questioning this. Allowing the weapons inspect inspectors to do this. Oh, and by the way, at the time when all of the networks were pushing this narrative, they did a study and 61% of Americans supported delaying any kind of attack. Let the weapons inspectors do their jobs. Like, we don't want to go to war. So even with all of that propaganda that was being pushed by these networks, 61% of Americans still said, no, we shouldn't involve ourselves in this. Which, by the way, I think if you looked at those numbers would be very similar to like what Trump got in this last election with, like, do we support probably way higher. You probably know these numbers better than I do. Like, what percentage of Americans right now want us to be involved in these forever wars. Oh, and by the way, you're not allowed to say forever wars anymore because now you're. If you say that you're unpatriotic, you're part of, like the Thomas Massie, you know, isolationists.

[Tucker Carlson]

If you say forever, Thomas Massey is unpatriotic.

[Clayton Morris]

Now, apparently that's what he's being called, unpatriotic. Because on Fox, well, on Truth Social, I mean, I think we've seen that he's anti American.

[Tucker Carlson]

Hard to imagine.

[Clayton Morris]

I think Trump just called him that. He's unpatriotic and anti American.

[Tucker Carlson]

I know Thomas Massey well. I mean, you don't have to agree with Thomas Massie on anything. But to call him unpatriotic is really shocking.

[Clayton Morris]

Right. So again, by that measure.

[Tucker Carlson]

So who is Thomas Massie? Thomas Massie is ideological, but more than that, he's like a gentle man. He's a very decent man personally. He believes in self restraint, he believes in self reliance. He built his own off grid house. He lives in the community he's from, knows everybody. His rise in politics was totally organic. He didn't, you know, wasn't in the young leaders program at Davos. He, he's like the most American person. Married his high school girlfriend who passed unfortunately, has great kids who love him. I can't imagine a more American man than Thomas Massie. You can totally disagree with Thomas Massie, you know, you think his ideas are dumb or whatever. It's fine, of course, but to impugn his character is so disgusting to me.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, I feel the same way. And you know, I, I have, that makes me.

[Tucker Carlson]

Because I know Thomas Massie. I don't agree with everything Thomas Massie says. I don't agree with anything anyone, everything anyone says. But that's disgusting that people would say that about him.

[Clayton Morris]

And when people attack, I have it, I invite him on my show, you know, come on. Because I can't stand, I can't stand when people attack him or call him that he's somehow not make America great again because he stands in the way of a massive multi trillion dollar debt time bomb that he, that we're going to pass in Congress, that he talks about that or that says we shouldn't bomb other countries.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, his views are sincere. I mean, you could say, well, you know, there are a million different plausible arguments you can make for and against any potential action, you know, but you can't say that Thomas Massie is thoughtless. You can't say that he's acting on behalf of somebody else. He's totally transparent about what he believes and why. And he's totally sincere and he's saying what he believes is true. And in a decent society, in a Christian society, that has to matter. Just because you're sincere doesn't mean you're right. Of course.

[Clayton Morris]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

But we have to take that into consideration when we assess you as a person that you're sincere. You're not being paid to say this. You're not being paid for some hidden reason. You're saying this because you really believe it. Like that's meaningful. That has to be meaningful or else we've lost our decency. Everybody wants to feel secure at home. It's your castle. There's nothing like going to sleep with a complete sense of safety. That's why you sleep soundly. That's why we cannot speak highly enough of Simplisafe. Most security systems take action only after someone breaks. Breaks into your house. That's a little late. Simplisafe's new active guard outdoor protection feature helps stop break ins before they occur. And that gives you peace of mind. And it means you won't have to sleep with a baseball bat or a loaded handgun on your bedside. Though you might want to. Anyway, here's how it works. If something suspicious happens outside your property, cameras and live monitoring agents will detect it. They'll speak to the intruder, turn on spotlights, and can call the police if necessary. It's no surprise that CNET named Simplisafe the best home security system of 2025. Over 4 million Americans trust it because it's preemptive monitoring plans start around $1 per day. There are no hidden fees. 60 day money back guarantee. Visit simplisafe.comtucker to get 50% off a new system with a professional monitoring plan and your first month free. That's Simplisafe. S I M P L I S A F E. There's no safe like Simplisafe.

[Clayton Morris]

What happened to, you know, the United States of America, where pubs across Philadelphia were filled with people just sitting there having friendly debates over politics, you know, having a hard cider at 9 in the morning, you know, like our founding fathers did. Maybe we need to bring back hard cider. But that's what they did. That was their breakfast drink. You know, John Adams sitting there just having a conversation with, you know, with Thomas Jefferson.

[Tucker Carlson]

In their defense, the water was bad. That was.

[Clayton Morris]

That's true, right?

[Tucker Carlson]

Safest beverage. No, but it's, it's. Sorry, I'm sorry to get. Wow. That I'm not. Not as clued into what people are saying as I probably should be. But I didn't know that he was being attacked like that vehemently.

[Clayton Morris]

And President Trump just launched a like large diatribe on Truth Social about him, you know, calling him non, you know, not, not maga. And he's not make America great again.

[Tucker Carlson]

And Thomas Massey is the wrong target. Yeah, I think it was the first.

[Clayton Morris]

Time that I saw Trump get ratioed actually, when he attacked Massey a few months ago and just read the comments. So people usually, you know, all of the MAGA people will just jump on and say, you know, whatever you say, President Trump, we love you. We love you, without any sort of critical thought. And then when he. When he attacked Massie a number of months ago, the ratio was unbelievable. I never thought I'd see it, but people overwhelming were like, Mr. President, wrong target.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's wrong target. I mean, you can. I understand that Trump is annoyed, understandably, that Massey's, like, criticizing his bill. Trump thinks the bill's really important and Massey's just totally against it. And you can't win Massey's vote because he really means it. I think this is what the President's thinking is my sense. And. And that annoys him because he really feels like he has to get this bill through. Okay, that's a fair debate. I get it. I get both sides. But to accuse him, for anyone, to accuse Massey of having evil motives is really dark and says much more about the accuser than the accused, I would say.

[Clayton Morris]

I agree.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So, wow. Okay. Well, you've already got me spun up, Clayton Morris.

[Clayton Morris]

Well, I've been spun up all weekend, so it's. I have to share some of that energy with you. I mean, I know you've been furious, too, so.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, also ashamed, because I was part of the propaganda push in 2002 and 2003, up until December 15th of that year, when I changed my view, life and views. But, um, I don't remember anyone ever talking about. So I was in TV from 2003. I'd been in it long before that, but I was in 2003 to. I got fired in 2023. So that's. That's 20 years, I guess. That's exactly 20 years.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

I don't remember really any conversation, you know, backstage about our role, the media's role in the run up to Iraq. Did anyone ever talk about that, in your experience?

[Clayton Morris]

No. No. And it's such a vital part of this. It's such a important piece of this, to have that propaganda piece of this, the manufacturing of consent for war.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

And we have, again, a long history of this. You don't do it without the newspapers, you don't do it without the television stations. You don't do it without the FOX News or the CNNs, the MSNBC. I mean, CBS changed the name of their show to Showdown with Saddam. Hi, I'm Clayton Morris, host of Showdown with Saddam. We haven't attacked. We haven't attacked them yet. But that's the name of my show. Welcome. We're replacing Phil Donahue with Countdown Iraq. So you're framing all of this ahead of time. The propaganda is there ahead of time. So it's all being laid out. Basically. It becomes an inevitability that we are going to attack.

[Tucker Carlson]

Exactly. The show should have been called what the Hell Does Saddam Hussein have to do with 9 11? Hosted by Clayton. Even I, who was a semi witting cog in the propaganda machine those years, even I was like always baffled, like, what the hell does Saddam have to do with 9 11? And there was this character, Steve Hayes, who later became a Fox News contributor. Oh yeah, remember, who was like, who's just kind of dumb, not evil or anything. He's just stupid and ambitious and trying to feed his family. But he wound up writing this book and I think the Cheney people like leaked him a bunch of lies and he was dumb enough to believe them. And it was like a book like, no, actually, Saddam was behind 9 11.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, believe the Chinese.

[Tucker Carlson]

And I like Tay's too. At the time we worked together, actually, I was like, ah, I don't, I don't think you really made the case there.

[Clayton Morris]

When did he publish that book? Was that before Colin Powell's Anthrax?

[Tucker Carlson]

You know, it's all a blur to me. It was a long time ago and I was right in the middle of it. So it's harder to see the outlines when you're in the middle of something. I didn't have clarity and like the Fair Report at the time, I would have been like, fair is a very liberal group. And I would have been like, well, liberals, yeah, who gives a shit what they think? And I'm still very opposed to liberals. But the definition of liberal has changed. But now I would, I would hope, I would say I don't care where the information comes from. What matters to me is whether or not it's true.

[Clayton Morris]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

You have to be focused on what's true, period. Like, that has to be your, your North Star, or else you're going to wind up participating in lies as I did.

[Clayton Morris]

Do you remember a curveball?

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

So this is a, the media complicity with this. So I spoke to an FBI agent who told me, he said, you know, when we want to leak information, you know, we push it out to the Washington Post or we push it out to intelligence agencies. Want to push and leak stories or plant stories, we go to the New York Times, we go to the, you know, we go to the Washington Post, et cetera. And of course, it used to be, you know, back in the day, you know, they were embedded inside of newsrooms, right? So you had them inside the CBS newsroom and all of that. Now they just give them the information and then they run with it. They don't question it at all. So Curveball. This has always been fascinating to me. It's, you know, Colin Powell gets up there and holds up this vial, and it's been kept from him that this guy Curveball was a defector from Iraq. He defects to Germany and starts talking all kinds of about Saddam Hussein. He's got mobile biological weapons labs, mobile bio labs. I remember that he's got all these things. And the German authorities are like, this guy Curveball has got a screw loose. Like, eh. So do you remember there was a CIA European chief, I think his name was like Tyler Drumheller or something like that. He knew that this guy Screwball had a screw loose. And he warned his counterparts in D.C. like, don't pay attention to what this guy Curveball is saying. This information is not accurate. He's got an agenda. This smells bad. Don't base anything that you're giving Colin Powell or anybody, anybody else any reason to go into Iraq. Don't base it on Curveball. DC ignores it on purpose, hides it from Colin Powell. So then Colin Powell goes before the American people with a little vial of fake anthrax and says, mobile biological weapons labs. And I mean, all of the networks run with it. There were people in the media who were aware that Curveball had a screw loose, but it didn't matter because the narrative had been set. We ignored it. So the DC offices ignored it on purpose and cordoned it off. I think Colin Powell's speechwriter at the time and head of his office said we were completely deceived because they withheld this information. And this was.

[Tucker Carlson]

He's.

[Clayton Morris]

Colin Powell spent weeks at CIA headquarters going over all of the documents. Not one of them did he find credible. The one that he ended up using. One of maybe two was the mobile biological weapons labs. That all came from Curveball, which was all made up. And then of course, in 2011, curveball comes out and says, yeah, I made the whole thing up because I hated Saddam and I just wanted regime change. And I knew if I planted this seed, it would lead to regime change. Shouldn't we have a stronger predicate to go into these countries? And shouldn't the. The incurious media be asking questions of these people? But they go along with it because it's part of, you know, I know who's feeding them these sort of like deep state talking points that they need to carry on with this. But to me, they're an extension of the Pentagon. I mean, when you have like Fox News has like an office in the.

[Tucker Carlson]

Pentagon and who, who works in that office?

[Clayton Morris]

I think Jennifer Griffin.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, Jennifer Griffin, yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

So you have these people that are literally inside the buildings.

[Tucker Carlson]

Jennifer Griffin is, even by the standards of Pentagon employees, I guess she's not technically an employee the Pentagon. She's a shill obviously for the deepest of the deep states. But she, she's like a parody. She's like a parody. It's like the whole thing. She had this amazing tweet yesterday. I guess the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, our former colleague, said something about, you know, referring to the pilots of the B2s who dropped the, the bunker busters in Iran, said something like, good work boys. I think there's something like that. And Jennifer Griffin immediately comes back and goes, breaking news. Actually one of the pilots was a female, a woman. And like, so all of a sudden Fox News is like celebrating the diversity of the bomber pilots. It's like there was this meme years ago, several years ago, making fun of the left and it was like, you know, someone getting bombed in some, you know, benighted country and by the US or by NATO. And it was like, but you know, at least the pilots are gay. And all of a sudden Fox is like, no, actually we should celebrate now because One of the B2 pilots was a woman. So Roe v. Wade was overturned three years ago and people celebrated. But the battle over abortion is not over. In fact, did you know that abortions are at a 10 year high? In a lot of ways it's the saddest thing that happens in this country. The birth rate falls and the killing of children accelerates. It's awful. Preborn is fighting this trend. They're expanding their life affirming care in the darkest corners of the country to help women and save babies. Now, abortion mafia don't want women to think about about what they are carrying. They want them to think that ending the pregnancy will solve all of their problems. But that is not true. 11% of women who take the abortion pill, for example, go on to suffer serious health consequences. And that does not include the emotional and moral consequences. It's bad, it's ending a life. So when you give to preborn, you are not just saving a baby, you're saving a mother too. Preborn has already rescued over 350,000 babies. There are still many, many more who need help. Dial pound 250 and say the keyword baby to support their cause. That's pound 250, baby. Go to preborn.comtucker. preborn.comtucker because children are the greatest gift, period.

[Clayton Morris]

You know what's amazing if you look at. Well, first of all, her coverage of this in the immediate aftermath of the bombing was. This is spectacular. You know, Sean, this is spectacular. This was, it was the. Yeah, this was an amazing operation. There was not one leak.

[Tucker Carlson]

No one love the explosions. Jennifer Griffin's fought in a lot of wars. She's personally courageous. She put a lot on the line.

[Clayton Morris]

So many of these people are even like that. Jim Scudo from cnn, you know, he was embedded in, in Ukraine and he's like, you know, we, we know this massive offensive is coming. Here's this and this, you know, being fed information directly from the deep state, you know, these guys. So they're all an extension, you know, and all these other. They're all an extension of the intelligence community being fed this information and given these stores. So they can never say a negative thing about them because then you cut off your sources, you know, Jennifer Griffin, as this was all unfolding and it was clear to me that there are a lot of questions about what was actually in those nuclear sites, because a week earlier, Israel had struck two of them. So do you think that Iran just kind of hung out and just like, got a broom out and cleaned some stuff up and just put, like, the pictures back up on the wall? No, they were empty. And Fordo, by all accounts, was empty as well. So what exactly did we hit? And then this information was coming out almost in real time. But I was watching the network news coverage and there was no sort of walking it back. There was no assessment.

[Tucker Carlson]

Telling the truth. Right. Just lying.

[Clayton Morris]

Just continuing with this. This is the greatest moment in America.

[Tucker Carlson]

The thing is, Jen Griffin is a liar, but also very liberal. Wow. True Trump hater. To the point where I complained about her. And I really tried not to complain about other people at Fox when I worked there because, like, I don't like that, you know, office politics stuff. But she was discrediting the channel. She was such a Trump hater. And it was like, emotional. Like her internal memos, you know, from the Pentagon sources are telling us were like screeds. It was like, oh, I'll just read political playbook, if that's what you know, or whatever. I'll read Mother Jones. And I said to an Executive at Fox. Like what, what are we doing with this Jennifer Griffin person? She's an idiot. She doesn't tell the truth. She misleads our viewers and she's like a screaming liberal who hates Trump, who our viewers love. So what, what are we getting out of this? And it was like, oh, it's like, boy, you could not touch Jennifer Griffin. I don't know what that's about, but.

[Clayton Morris]

Well, if you have an office in the Pentagon, maybe that's what that's about. Maybe, I mean, or, I don't know, that's that whole other world that I, you know, I'm not a part of. But I just, I cannot, I can't tolerate it. And it's why so many people are so fed up with cable news. But you have to understand, well, you understand it. Maybe your viewers don't fully understand or appreciate how profitable it is for these networks during war. So if you look at the numbers from like, like Q1 of 20 or 2002, 2002, before we went into Iraq, the numbers for revenue for, for fox was about 70 or so. I forget the numbers exactly. But anyway, in that following quarter, when the war started in March, the numbers went up 150%.

[Tucker Carlson]

No way.

[Clayton Morris]

150%. So war is incredibly profitable. I mean, CNN was built on it, right? I mean cnn, of course, literally started.

[Tucker Carlson]

Or was brought to public attention during the war that your brother served in in 1990.

[Clayton Morris]

So they made billions off of war. So Countdown to Iraq, Showdown with Saddam, like all of the sort of build up to war. People are going to tune in, they're going to make money from ad revenue. When in an era where ad revenue is plummeting, the young people don't watch cable news. They get their news from like TikTok and X and little sound bites here and YouTube and places like that. They're not buying a cable subscription. Do you know any young people that have a cable? I bet if you asked any of your staff, any of you guys own a cable subscription so you can watch CNN or Fox News? No. So that audience is, you know, like getting much, much older. So it's gonna be very interesting to see what happens to like the cable news landscape in the next few years.

[Tucker Carlson]

You remember Benghazi, right?

[Clayton Morris]

I'm glad you brought that up for a whole, a whole host of reasons, but go ahead. I don't mean to.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, that was kind of in progress when I got to Fox. I've been fired from a couple other channels. Roger Ailes hired me. So nice of him. I'll never stop being grateful and. But I show up in this Benghazi thing, it's like going bonkers and. Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi. And this is like the touchstone to. This is the Rosetta Stone to the Obama administration where he take him down with Benghazi. And of course, the US Ambassador was killed. And so whatever. I mean, that's. I'm totally opposed to you. My father's US Ambassador. I'm against US Ambassadors being killed right through the streets. Yeah, yeah, yeah, completely. So I was on board and we talked about it a lot on tv. And I remember one day I was thinking, I saw some number of. The number of CIA operations guys, CIA officers who were there. And Benghazi is like an ancient city. I think it's across from Cyprus. It's on. On the Med. And, you know, second city of Libya. It's a real place. But we had. We had so many CIA personnel in Benghazi, Libya. And I remember this was after we. NATO killed Gaddafi. And I was like, why? What. What were they doing there? What was people doing there? So I asked that question on tv, and it turns out they were there helping to move Gaddafi's arm stockpiles to fund the war in Syria, which we were not prosecuting on our own behalf. It was 100% for a foreign country. We were doing this. We had no national interest in stoking a civil war in Syria. In Syria. We did that really at the behest of another country. Shamefully killed all these people. But whatever. Anyway, I didn't know any of this, but I was just. I just asked, like, one day, why do we have so many CI officers? I sort of understood that world a little bit. And I was like, that's weird that we have 35 operations guys in Benghazi, Libya. Like, what is. Or whatever the number was.

[Clayton Morris]

Whoa.

[Tucker Carlson]

I got immediately, whoa. That's not the Benghazi story we're looking at.

[Clayton Morris]

Really? Fox told you that?

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, 100%.

[Clayton Morris]

Like, I don't know.

[Tucker Carlson]

Like, what does that have to do with it? The point is a US Ambassador was killed. That's bad. Let's just keep it there. Like, we don't. That's not our area.

[Clayton Morris]

I'm glad you bring this up.

[Tucker Carlson]

Then I was like, oh, my gosh, something big is going on here.

[Clayton Morris]

Because, you know, Fox hated Obama, of course.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, yeah, me too.

[Clayton Morris]

I still do. Yeah. Vehemently hated Hillary Clinton.

[Tucker Carlson]

Me too.

[Clayton Morris]

Vehemently. So they're responsible for the Benghazi disaster. Killing of U.S. ambassador. But you couldn't ask questions about like why the hell are we in Libya to begin with.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, exactly.

[Clayton Morris]

So isn't that amazing? So you. Because that speaks to the heart of it, which is the uniparty. Right. That speaks to the heart of it, which is both that liberals, neocons, they're all operating from the same playbook.

[Tucker Carlson]

Exactly.

[Clayton Morris]

So you can't question like why are we in Libya in the first place? Why, why did we go in? And you know, just because, you know, Gaddafi wanted to make his own country prosperous, that we can't have that in the Middle east in the same way that we couldn't have Iran nationalizing their own oil in the 1950s. Right. That's the same thing. So you can't ask that question. And so it just speaks to the military industrial complex control, the uniparty that operates in Washington D.C. that fully is an operational at the, at the media networks as well. Don't question why we're in Libya. Just focus on the Hillary Clinton piece of what happened in Benghazi. Don't question what's going on in Syria. Just, you know, focus on Assad as a madman and he's going to kill, he's gassed all these people. Which was fake.

[Tucker Carlson]

It was fake. I said it was fake. Boy, they wanted to kill me for saying that.

[Clayton Morris]

I mean this sort of predicate, these propaganda pieces that they use and it becomes part of like, you know, this national vernacular on television. You know, Saddam is, you know, Assad is gassing his own people. It's not true.

[Tucker Carlson]

They were so emotionally so that by that point I, I'm neutral on Assad, always have been. But there was a thriving Christian community there. I am a Christian. So I, it felt legitimate for me to ask, like, how does it affect the Christians? I don't know. No one else is saying it. So I thought I would.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

And I said that, wow, people didn't like that. And then the gas attack came, which was of course the justification for a bombing campaign, another bombing campaign in Syria. And someone high level person tipped me off, hey, this is not real. Well, there's no evidence it's real. If it's real, show me how it's real.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. In fact it's been not only no evidence, it's been debunked.

[Tucker Carlson]

Right. But this was like the day after the day of.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So I said that on tv. Boy, I got taken aside by a senior person there who I really liked, had known my whole life honestly. And I was like, Tucker, I Don't know what you're doing here, but this is, this is. And I was like in very emotional, like, why are you defending Assad? I was like, I'm not defending Assad. We're using the US military to kill people. And I just want to know if the justification for that is real and they haven't shown that it is. And they're clearly lying and I don't know much about anything, but I do know lying when I see it. I have a good instinct for that and I think they're lying.

[Clayton Morris]

Wow.

[Tucker Carlson]

I got scolded by somebody who I really liked and was close to personally, but was like, emotional, like, how dare you. What is that? I don't understand it to this day.

[Clayton Morris]

I think I understand it in a, if you look at it with this like, broader brush that we're, we can't have dissent when you're trying to, when you're trying to do the bidding of a foreign country. I mean, Israel absolutely wanted us to take out Assad. They've been wanting the same thing with Libya. And if you go back to Netanyahu sitting there in front of Congress telling us about Iraq, that Saddam Hussein 100 has weapons of mass destruction, 100%, there's no doubt in my mind he has weapons of mass destruction. You need to go in there like, you know, by the way, it's a risk to America. So this is always the, the, you know, the story, which is it's a risk to America if, if you don't go and bomb Iran, it's a risk to America. We're, we're defending freedom together. And the same with Syria, that Syria is going to launch attacks. Which by the way, Syria was one of the most peaceful countries in the world. Damascus, a beautiful country, a beautiful city, one of the most peaceful countries in the world. Look it up. But when you want to take care of your own people and you want to sort of de. Westernize, that's a huge threat. In the same way that Iran wanting to nationalize its own oil and kick British Petroleum out of its country. Yeah, we're going to keep our own oil. I mean, look what it did to Norway in the late 70s. Norway became one of the richest and.

[Tucker Carlson]

Wealthiest countries in the world, number one per capita.

[Clayton Morris]

So if there's a history lesson here, like Iran was basically trying to do what Norway did in the late 70s. We're going to not, you know, nationalize our own oil, but keep, keep the profitability for ourself. And then what happened? The United States took it over British Petroleum came back in, we installed the Shah, they end up using all of this oil funneling off to other places. So doesn't enrich the Iranians at all. Widespread poverty, it's like something out of Mao's playbook, you know, like take all of your food and then just ship it off to Russia.

[Tucker Carlson]

Exactly right.

[Clayton Morris]

And then also charge your Chinese people really high taxes, give them no food, produce a bountiful amount of food, just like Iran with oil. But instead of keeping it, send it to Stalin so that you're in, you're fattening them up. The wheat goes to, the wheat goes to Russia, doesn't go to the Chinese people. It's, it's a play, you know, it's right outta that playbook. So we can cannot have a strong Libya that serves its own self interests. We cannot have a strong Iran that wants to enrich its own people. Have you ever seen the photos of Iran in the 1950s?

[Tucker Carlson]

I have.

[Clayton Morris]

It's unbelievable. People should look it up. I mean, girls in miniskirts walking, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between downtown Rochester, New York, these black.

[Tucker Carlson]

And white photos, which was also thriving.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

In 1954. Yeah. Sad. No, it's. And I don't know, I, I've managed to see the Israeli perspective on, I don't see it on Gaza, I'm just gonna say that. But on most things I've managed to see the Israeli perspective and you know, they think they're acting in their own interests and my kind of gut level view is that every country accidents own interest, every person accidents his family's interest. That, that makes sense to me. I've never been mad about it. Again, Gaza, I think is, is too much. Just my personal opinion. Sorry, call me a hater, but, but whatever. But in just in general like countries act their own interests, like, that's okay. I don't understand the Americans who are bought in on that or change their.

[Clayton Morris]

Profiles so that they've got their Christian Americans and they've got an Israeli flag.

[Tucker Carlson]

I don't get that.

[Clayton Morris]

I don't understand.

[Tucker Carlson]

I don't get that. Everyone's like, oh, you hate Israel. No, my real rage is reserved for people who sell at their own country. Yeah, like I get their perspective. They think they're doing what they need to do. They could be right or wrong. We can debate it whether what they're doing is good for them, you know, doesn't seem like it, but maybe they're, you know, what do I know?

[Clayton Morris]

No, I think Israel, I Mean, I'll say it. I think Israel is killing themselves.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, okay. But that's their country, right? I don't understand why the selling out of my country, where I'm from, by my countrymen, like, that really offends me. That's fair, isn't it?

[Clayton Morris]

Right. Because I don't hear Israelis wanting to pump us with billions of dollars, telling us that you guys have a fentanyl problem or coming into our country. The IDF is going to protect our southern borders to protect us. Why are we sending billions of dollars? Israel has a surplus, a budget surplus, and a space force, like, space program. Like, why are we, I mean, just driving down the street seeing, like, homeless people?

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, I know.

[Clayton Morris]

I was driving down the street just the other day, just this guy, like, with a bag just like, you know, falling out of the trees. I was in California a few weeks ago, and just the tents and I couldn't believe the amount of tent cities underneath.

[Tucker Carlson]

A national emergency. It's the most pressing national emergency I can imagine. If your countrymen are dying of drug ODs by the hundreds of thousands and living on the street by the millions, which they are.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

How is that not the most important thing that's happening in your country?

[Clayton Morris]

But they'll say it's a false dichotomy. What does us sending billions to Israel have to do with all the homeless people in the United States?

[Tucker Carlson]

No, I mean, it's silly how much disk space, how much attention of our leaders is focused abroad versus how much is focused here. It's simple. It's not even about the money, though it is on some level about the money, but it's about the attention. If I'm totally absorbed in the problems of my neighbor's children, it leaves less time for the problems of my own children. It's that simple.

[Clayton Morris]

Well, Ted Cruz said to you in your interview with him, the very first thing out of his mouth, the very first reason he wanted to become a part of the United States Congress, is because he wanted to see how he could serve Israel. I think those were his maybe.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah. The problem with that is once you start saying that stuff out loud, I mean, I, you know, it's not good. People are, you know, once you see how things actually operate, it radicalizes people. And as a true temperamental moderate, let me say I don't want that. I don't want a country full of angry people. You know what I mean? But people like Ted Cruz, who is just sort of admits that the US Is not his main interest in life, but he is A United States senator representing one of our biggest states. That radicalizes people. I mean, why wouldn't it? Yeah, And I just don't want that. I don't want everyone to be kind of happy and I want people to be pissed off and writing crazy on X and which they're now doing. You know what I mean? Yeah, all of it. Anyway, so can I. You said you saw Fox News recently. You're not a huge Fox. Well, you lived out of the country for years.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, I never. I never really watched it for years. Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah. But now you're back in the United States and you saw it. Can I just play? We just put together a montage which I think is fair. By the way, Fox canned me over two years ago. I've never attacked Fox. I'm not mad at Fox. I. I've always liked Fox. I'm ungrateful to them. This is really the first time I've attacked them. But I think it really matters. I think this is a fair representation of what's on Fox Fox's air right now. Okay, here it is. The greater risk would be to do nothing in the face of a clear and present danger. The world cannot experience another holocaust if Iran gets a nuclear weapon. I think the odds are unacceptably high that we would find out with a mushroom cloud over New York City or Los Angeles or Tel Aviv. And Israel. Israel is doing an enormous favor to.

[Clayton Morris]

The United States right now. Nuclear Iran is not just an existential threat to Israel, it is an existential threat to America. Take these enemies not just figuratively, not just seriously, but literally. When they say they want a second genocide, they want a nuclear holocaust, they mean it.

[Tucker Carlson]

If we need to provide bombs to Israel, provide bombs. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations. But here's the bigger question. Wouldn't the world be better off if the Ayatollahs went away and replaced by something better? Wouldn't Iran be better off? America first is not sitting in a beach chair and using words. It's taking decisive action. When we can take out Fordeau the one swoop of an airplane. What the hell is it going to.

[Clayton Morris]

Take to realize what we're up against here?

[Tucker Carlson]

This country should be united. United in its own defense. Nobody's dragging us into anything. It's not the Jews. It's not Israel. Again, no. Long range intercontinental ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads are for you and me and your children and your grandchildren. That's what's airing on Fox. By the way, that same person, Mark Levin, who was a totally minor player in Fox world up until recently. I can tell you firsthand suggested today that we send nuclear weapons to Ukraine too. And, but I should just make it clear in the last clip that we played, he said intercontinental ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads are meant for you. They're going to kill you, the mullahs. Iran doesn't have intercontinental ballistic missiles. It doesn't have nuclear warheads. Like all of this is, it's, it's deranged. And the point is to scare old people into obedience. And let me say one last thing that everyone on that list, so we've got Hannity, Cruz, Barry Weiss, Lindsey Graham, Kayleigh McEnany, Mark Levin, Levin of those people, Hannity's, I think a genuine friend of Trump's. I think Hannity really likes Trump. And I just want to say again, I really like Sean Hannity personally. Got no problem with Sean Hannity at all personally. And he, he likes, he likes Trump. I don't know Kayleigh McEnany what she thinks of Trump. But Ted Cruz, Barry Weiss, Lindsey Graham and Mark Levin hate Donald Trump. They're all never Trumpers. Well, I mean, you know, one of them, Ted Rouge, ran against him, right? You know, so like these are people who hate Donald Trump. I'm not guessing. I know them all.

[Clayton Morris]

They're like Nikki Haley supporters, 100% right.

[Tucker Carlson]

Ron DeSantis, and they're all now saying how much they love Trump. Like anyway, I'm gonna stand back and just let you assess like what we just saw.

[Clayton Morris]

Well, one thing I noticed, I didn't see any dissenting voices at all. Again, goes right back to the 2002 playbook. I didn't see anybody saying, wait a second, challenging Mark Levin about intercontinental ballistic missiles. There was no questioning of that.

[Tucker Carlson]

There's just, there's no one there to question that. They, there was a guy who would have questioned him, but they fired him a couple of years ago and now.

[Clayton Morris]

He'S got a much bigger platform.

[Tucker Carlson]

I didn't mean to sound self pitying, but it is.

[Clayton Morris]

No, it is true. Like is Hannity, I mean, I think Ted Cruz, I don't know whose show he was on during that, but is Hannity going to question, like I saw Mark Levin go on a tirade the other day on Hannity's show and then Hannity basically jumped in and supported that tirade, praising Trump as maybe, you know, that decades of presidents had the opportunity to attack and didn't do it. It took Donald Trump like, you know, God basically to attack and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. But I didn't see any dissenting voices on this at all. And the idea of Barry Weiss saying that. That this is a threat to America. So that's. That's what we keep hearing. This is a threat to.

[Tucker Carlson]

Barry Weiss will say whatever she needs to say. Barry Weiss's interest is not the United States at all. It's odd.

[Clayton Morris]

I mean, but factually, is it a threat to America? That's what I want to know.

[Tucker Carlson]

Like, who and if it is, certainly make it a threat to America.

[Clayton Morris]

Right. And that's the. That's the beauty of. Now we're hearing about. Now there's sleeper cells. So I spoke to a CIA agent, former CIA agent, a couple months ago, and he said, my biggest fear is that they will use. He said, this is. This is the CIA plan. This is what we do. So we use a dumb Muslim. We'll get a dumb Muslim who's easily brainwashable, and we'll have them carry out an attack as a catalyst for us to go into war. Go into war in Iran. And then, oh, this guy's Iran. This guy's an Iranian. Ah, there you go.

[Tucker Carlson]

Dumb Palestinian, Christian, like Sirhan Sirhan. Just throwing that.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, exactly.

[Tucker Carlson]

Excuse me.

[Clayton Morris]

Right. Exactly. So we will use a patsy, and that will be the catalyst. Do you see what they did in. You know, in Wayne, Michigan? Did you see what they did? There was a. There was a. You know, carrying out this attack, by the way, these accounts. As soon as we attacked the nuclear sites, almost immediately there were videos being surfaced and flooded on social media about, like, Islamists running towards subways in New York City.

[Tucker Carlson]

This is so reckless and deep dangerous.

[Clayton Morris]

It's so immoral, but so profitable, Tucker. So much money they'll make off of this.

[Tucker Carlson]

I mean, I think Mark Levin and Barry Weiss, you know, whatever. I mean, these are people who just really just don't care at all. Okay, but there are other people here. Lindsey Graham, who. Everyone hates Lindsey Graham, but I always say this, and I mean it once. Absolutely delightful person. Delightful person. Hilarious. Nice. Like, he's not in person. He's not some kind of monster at all. He's like, fun guy to have dinner with, which I have done. What's he thinking? Does part of him think, geez, you know, a lot of people could die. Like, I'm like, when they die, do I feel bad about it?

[Clayton Morris]

It's an unpatriotic question, Tucker.

[Tucker Carlson]

No, but, like, this is so.

[Clayton Morris]

That's an anti Semitic question. Like, how can you think he really thinks that I don't think he's. I think he's so bought and paid for by the military industrial complex. How much money he's made from the military industrial complex?

[Tucker Carlson]

People are dying.

[Clayton Morris]

I don't think they care at all. They're in a bubble, man. I don't think they care at all.

[Tucker Carlson]

And so they don't think at some point they're gonna have to answer for this?

[Clayton Morris]

Maybe in the afterlife they will, but because it always happens over there, we.

[Tucker Carlson]

Don'T live that long. Like, human lifespan's pretty short. I don't know you're really rolling the dice with this kind of stuff. I mean, maybe there's no God and, you know, it's fine and, like, the guy who dies, richest wins. I. I guess, maybe. But what if you're. What if, you know, the Blaise Pascal formula is, like. Right. Like, why would you. Why would you risk that?

[Clayton Morris]

He's only risking, like, purgatory for a few. Few thousand years, and then he'll, you know, eventually get shot off one way or the other. But it's incredibly profitable.

[Tucker Carlson]

Like, if somebody sent you $10 million to say that, you know, Firestone tires are better than Bridgestone tires, assuming they're not the same company, which I think they may be, but whatever.

[Clayton Morris]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

You know what I mean?

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

You'd be like, okay, I'm for Firestone now, $10 million. But if someone sent you $10 million or $100 million or $10 billion to say something was untrue that you knew would get people killed, you want $10 billion, but you'd be like, I don't know. I can't. That's not a good idea. Kind of rolling with my soul here.

[Clayton Morris]

But these people are soulless, and they're not going to ask these tough questions. They're not going to challenge this. As you and I talked about last night, I'm thinking of that Upton Sinclair quote where he said, what you. It's.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's. It's hard to convince a man of something he's paid not to see.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, yeah. It's. You know, if you're paying. If you're on the salary, if he's being paid to not see it, if your whole salary relies on knowing something that's right, you know, or not knowing something, you know, it's difficult. So all these, you know, different anchors on these different television, they. They want the prestige of being on TV and having people, like, put makeup on them and all of that, and they. They rely on that contract. They rely on that salary and then if they don't have that, they go off and try to do things like what? Like Don Lemon did or whatever. And if you're part of that machine, no one wants to watch your stuff, you know, because, well, for 10 years you were a liar. So now you're going to go off and do an independent show and now we're going to watch you and trust you. Like you were lying for money for so many years, pushing a narrative, and now you're going to go off. We're not going to watch it. So I just find it so.

[Tucker Carlson]

No, it's such a good point.

[Clayton Morris]

It's the same argument that they used in 2002, that it's an existential threat to the United States of America that Saddam Hussein is going to use intercontinental ballistic missiles. He's going to gather a warhead with anthrax, he's going to shoot, you know, he's going to shoot it into some mall somewhere. So that's the fear, right? They're playing on our fear that we are going to be attacked by Iran and we. They don't have an intercontinental ballistic missile to hit us to. Forget. Just don't let the facts get in the way. They actually don't have a nuclear warhead. They don't have the re entry mechanism to even make that happen. But we need to be fearful of it. Like, I don't wake up fearful of Iran in the morning. Maybe I'm dumb, you know, maybe I'm an idiot and I should. That should be the first thing that I do when I wake up in the morning. Not like the Trend or Agua Gang down the street. I should be more worried about Iran is going to attack me. And by the way, why would they attack us?

[Tucker Carlson]

I know.

[Clayton Morris]

Like, why. Why aren't they attacking Sweden right now? If they hate our freedoms, why aren't they attacking Norway right now? Why would they attack us if we get the. If we get the hell out of there? Maybe we wouldn't. Maybe we wouldn't have these problems if we wouldn't build these bases in their backyard, if we wouldn't meddle in trying to decapitate their leadership and overthrow and install a pro Western government and tell them to open McDonald's, but we can't. We seem like we're so addicted to doing it. And we thought under Trump that this would be a realignment. We're not going to do this.

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, the whole game has been to manipulate the president, of course. And, you know, I think that's true with any president. I Mean, that's the seat of power. So, of course, a lot of people had interest in, you know, moving it in their direction. I get it. You know, it's all. It's not surprising. It's not even offensive. It's just the way things are. I'm just offended watching these people who I know personally and I know for a fact they hate Trump. The Murdochs really hate Trump.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

There's no one who hates Trump more than the Murdochs. I mean, I got fired in April of 2023. In May of 2023, they asked me to run for president against Trump and said they would back me. Obviously, I'm not running for any. You know, I would never get elected any. Plus, I like Trump. I mean, that's the funny thing is I actually genuinely. I get frustrated. I'm frustrated now.

[Clayton Morris]

So. Hold on. You just said that, and people buy. I mean, they asked you to run for president against Trump. The Murdoch.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lachlan Murdoch said, you should run for.

[Clayton Morris]

We'll back you.

[Tucker Carlson]

The whole. The whole thing. The whole.

[Clayton Morris]

The whole Fox News apparatus, and not.

[Tucker Carlson]

Just Fox, but, you know, Wall Street Journal, all of their papers.

[Clayton Morris]

Absolutely, yeah, we'll back you. And that came right from.

[Tucker Carlson]

Should do that. I was already gone. They'd already canceled my show. I was still under contract, but they canceled my show. You should run. We support you. You should run.

[Clayton Morris]

We want to stop Trump.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, well, he was running. I was like, in. And first of all, I like Trump, and I thought DeSantis was kind of promising, and then he signed some hate speech bill out of the country, and I was like, ooh, you're a betrayer. Like, that's so offensive to me. I can't even. Any hate speech bill is so offensive to me. Can't criminalize opinions.

[Clayton Morris]

Right?

[Tucker Carlson]

What? Criminalize violence, which they don't. And I like Desantis, but that was. I was. I was like, no, I can't. That's so a violation of my principles. And I really. I. I've always liked Trump, despite getting frustrated, as I do with everyone. I love. We get frustrated, but I always like the guy a lot, and I still do anyway, but whatever. And also, I can get elected to anything, and I don't want to be elected to anything.

[Clayton Morris]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's not my world. And zero interest. I've never interest. But he looked at me. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely. At dinner. You. You should run. And. And I was like, I don't. That's not my world. Like, I'm a opinion guy, you know, sit behind a mic and tell you what I think. And that's what I've done my whole life. It's what I want to do. It's all I'm qualified to do. And he's like, no, no, no, no, you should do that. That's a fact. So that's fine. I mean, lots of people dislike Trump. It just bothers me that this channel run and staffed by Trump haters. They're not all Trump haters. Again, Sean Hannity likes Trump. Good for him. Like, for real. He does. And there are a few other people there who like Trump, but most people hate Trump. They wouldn't allow Trump on my show, period. Like, Trump would call in what they call a beeper or a phoner. You know, I mean, we had him on our show all the time. Yeah, like, nope, not doing that. I did an interview in April of 2023, right. With Trump at Mar a Lago, right before I got canned, like, a week before I got canned. And, boy, they were furious that I talked to Trump in that interview because.

[Clayton Morris]

They didn't want him.

[Tucker Carlson]

They hate him.

[Clayton Morris]

They didn't want him being promoted.

[Tucker Carlson]

And I don't know that it's personal. They just dislike his views. They dislike his views on economics, and they dislike his views on foreign policy, and they're very serious about it. So, again, that's fine. You can disagree. You're allowed to. I believe in disagreement, sincere disagreement. I'm just blown away that those same people, like, no, no, we're. We're here with maga. We're policing maga. You're not maga. Says Mark Levin or whatever his name is. It's like, are you serious?

[Clayton Morris]

And they were supporting Desantis. I mean, they were up until the crime hates Trump.

[Tucker Carlson]

So, like, which is. Again, that's fine. I'm not attacking him. I believe that everyone is allowed to come to his own conclusions about everything, because I believe that people have souls. They're not slaves or animals or machines. They are autonomous beings created by God. And so they're allowed and have to be allowed to come to their own conclusions. And all conclusions are legal. I'm not the one who's trying to criminalize opinions as they have done in Europe and they're trying to do here, I reject that. But Mark Levin is on the other side. Levin. And but for him to be like, oh, I just love Trump and Trump's the man. If you're a true paper, no, you're a Trump hater, and so are your bosses and so are your colleagues. And Jen Griffin, you're a Trump hater. It just drives me bonkers because it's a lie, it's fake. That's the part that bothers me. I have much more respect for, I don't know, just some sincere lefty who's like, yeah, I don't like Trump now. I didn't like him then. I disagree. Like, that just seems straightforward and sort of manly to me. This just seems totally creepy. Like Ted Cruz, like, oh, I love Trump.

[Clayton Morris]

And sycophantic.

[Tucker Carlson]

Totally.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, it's always. Yeah, it's always. That's always bothered me, the, you know, the sycophantic, you know, ass kissing on the air. But then the other part of it is that you know that Trump watches Fox all day.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

So?

[Tucker Carlson]

Well, they know that. That's why they're doing this.

[Clayton Morris]

They know that. So when they start an hour of a broadcast and say, trump just carried out the most magnificent attack in American history on nuclear sites, Trump's sitting there watching it. Yeah, I did that. So it's like feeding this ego. It's like a weird loop. I don't understand it.

[Tucker Carlson]

Yeah, I know.

[Clayton Morris]

It's going to be very interesting when.

[Tucker Carlson]

These, I mean, I do understand it. It's like this is the same reason people check their Twitter mentions or whatever they call it or Google themselves. Something I've never done. But, yeah, I don't, I don't approve of it. I think it's bad. I think it makes you more insecure when you look to other people for approval, people you don't know. Who cares what people you don't know think of you.

[Clayton Morris]

Like, right.

[Tucker Carlson]

So weird to me. But anyway. But I think, you know, it's a super tough call right now. He's under. The president's under enormous pressure from outside the White House, from donors and et cetera. And I think it's natural for people to seek affirmation. The problem is that you don't, you know, you don't want to be unduly influenced by flattery. I think that's a. Just for all of us. That's a weakness that all of us have. And I think you need to approach flatterers with hostility.

[Clayton Morris]

I agree.

[Tucker Carlson]

Flattery is way more dangerous than criticism.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. And people often ignore the flattery part and just soak it in. So it's very easy to get like a thousand comments that are praising you. I love you, Tucker. You're me. And then there's like one negative, really goes after you, calls you whatever. And you can dwell on that and lose sleep over that.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh yeah.

[Clayton Morris]

But maybe the more insidious and more dangerous or the thousand love comments because.

[Tucker Carlson]

You know, of course there's a kind of, I mean again, there's false criticism. You work for Qatar. Right. But like there's also legitimate criticism, which I think is really important to hear and I seek it always. I try to, I want to anyway. But flattery is the most deceptive of all. It's the most insidious, it's the most dangerous. It's. It shows the least respect to you. Someone who flatters you, has no respect for you at all.

[Clayton Morris]

If you were going to try to bring the conversation back to like a non emotional level with what's going on there, where would you go?

[Tucker Carlson]

Would it be America doing? It's really simple. How's America doing? Countries defined by its cities. Go to our 10 biggest cities, walk around, spend a day in each. How's it, how's it, how's it going? Doing a good job. Earlier's doing a pretty good job. That's a disaster. It is. And I live in, you know, rural pockets that are great because they're more like the country was in the 80s. Yeah, but that's not the country. The country is its cities. Right. Any country. I mean, in fact, there weren't even countries until fairly recently. There were cities. I mean that's. Rome was a city. We controlled the world.

[Clayton Morris]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

The idea of a nation state is a pretty new concept. No, cities matter. They really matter. I hate them. I don't go to them because they're terrible.

[Clayton Morris]

Right.

[Tucker Carlson]

So I would just say the pressing problem in America is the condition of its cities because that is America.

[Clayton Morris]

It's not Iran with an intercontinental ballistic missile.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, it's not Iran. It's also not Malibu or Jackson Hole or the weird little pockets where I live. It's not. It's New York, Chicago, Louisiana. It is, It's Atlanta, it's Minneapolis, it's.

[Clayton Morris]

Have you seen Sunset Boulevard recently? No, I just did an interview with someone who grew up in Hollywood and you know, Hollywood's collapsing, but Sunset Boulevard, all the big stores are closed.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, oh. Scene. Oh. Seen actual these Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

Not like the east west artery that defines the city.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, exactly.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh, I know it very well.

[Clayton Morris]

It's like all these classic stores, 80 year old restaurants closed up in Hollywood.

[Tucker Carlson]

Oh yeah. And Frank's is like. Yeah, that whole area. No, I know that area really well. And I, I grew up for a time in my childhood right there. And I And I love it.

[Clayton Morris]

San Francisco, go to Union Square.

[Tucker Carlson]

I went there with my great grandmother who was, survived the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. Went to Gumps with her as a child over Christmas. I'll never forget how charming Union Square was. And I was born there. And I was, I was there this spring and I was like, coming down off Knob, staying in Knob Hill, come down Union Square, and I was just like, ah, my heart broke.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

So, so that's, that's the problem. It's really simple. And you mention it to someone like Ted Cruz, or, I mean, Mark Levin and Barry Weiss are like, what? They don't even know what you're talking about. They don't care.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

They have no interest in America at all. But, but, but some of these people, I mean, certainly Lindsey Graham, he should care. He doesn't.

[Clayton Morris]

But again, it's Upton Sinclair, right? If you're, it's very difficult to get someone to understand something or care if their entire salary depends on them not caring. So his entire salary, the money that he makes from all of these lobbying groups, groups, all the military industrial complex funds, his mania, his wanting to, you know, decapitate Putin, regime change in Russia, regime change in Iran, doing the bidding of all of these, you know, all of these, all of these foreign countries doing the bidding of military industrial complex, which stands to make a lot of money. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could. You brought up a great point the other day. But that trillion dollar budget that we now have for the military industrial complex, like, why do we not have the material to protect ourselves, you think with.

[Tucker Carlson]

That kind of budget, I don't know, ask Jen Griffin.

[Clayton Morris]

Shut up.

[Tucker Carlson]

You hate the military, you love Iran, you love our enemies. Yeah, no, it's so frustrating. And again, I don't love Iran. I don't hate Israel. I really am angry at the people who abandoned their own country, who are positions of responsibility in their nation, the nation of birth, and just abandoned it. I look on them as I, as I view a father who abandoned his family with true contempt. I don't care how hot she was. I don't care how bad your drinking problem was. I don't care what your excuse was. You left your family. And I just, I, I, I have total contempt for that. By the way, that's not even considered bad now, right?

[Clayton Morris]

No, it's encouraged, like, totally. I mean, you abandon your children, that's cool. I mean, I was in a Barnes and Noble the other day and I haven't been in one of those in a Long time. Like a big bookstore that still exists. It still exists. Where it was in. Outside of Denver, Colorado.

[Tucker Carlson]

Wow.

[Clayton Morris]

And I used to love going. I would sit there for hours and just read books, get a coffee. And that's how I did my. Most of my studying at the University of Pittsburgh, was the Barnes and Noble down the street. And I loved it. I loved being around books. I loved, you know, that environment. But my wife and I went. She was like, oh, my God, I got to get out of here. Like, all of the little tables for, like, you know, gender studies or Gen, you know, and then there was the whole family. This really stunned us. The whole family section was not about, like, how to improve your marriage or have a better family. It was all how to get divorced.

[Tucker Carlson]

Next to how to kill yourself aisle.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly what. And they, of course, they pushed this. And this is what they want. You know, they don't want us to have a strong nuclear family. They don't want us to have strong neighbors, friendships in the neighborhood. They want us to, you know, they want. They want women to say they don't need men. You get rid of. Get rid of men in your life.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's. It's. Yeah, it's. So these. I guess, I mean, I have opinions and everything you said, but I don't want to keep repeating myself like an old person. But I guess I would just say we have a lot of problems, like real, real problems, not just inflation or GDP or like actual systemic problems to. To steal a term that they love. And, you know, anything that. That diverts attention from that, it seems really bad.

[Clayton Morris]

So this is the madness that I. This is another part of my rage because I watch the. The economic numbers.

[Tucker Carlson]

Also.

[Clayton Morris]

I'm not an economist. Play one on television.

[Tucker Carlson]

I am. I remember when I graduated from HBS and went to the New York Fed just for five years as an internship and thinking I could make this a career, but I instead went into cable news.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah, you could have worked at the treasury, but yeah.

[Tucker Carlson]

Excuse me.

[Clayton Morris]

So if you think about right now, what would devastate the United States of America? Is it an intercontinental ballistic missile? No, no. What would devastate the United States of America would be $5 gasoline. So have we thought about that? Because when I heard them come out on TV the other night, say, we've thought through every possible scenario as a. As an attack against us after we launched these attacks on these nuclear sites. We've gamed out everything with our words. We've gamed out everything. Did you game out that the Iranian parliament just voted to close the Straits of Hormuz. Did you figure that part of it out? Because I remember in 2022, under Biden, when gas hit $5, one penny.

[Tucker Carlson]

You.

[Clayton Morris]

Had people filling up the flatbed of their truck with tarps with gasoline because they were in panic mode. Biden literally emptied the strategic oil reserves. As a response, inflation went over 9%. The CPI number went over 9%, which is the consumer price index, which means how much are people paying for their groceries? How much gas prices are included in the CPI number? $5. Closing the straits of Hormuz could put oil or gas prices in the United States between 7 and $10.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's only 20% of the world's petroleum flows through there. Not a big deal.

[Clayton Morris]

Have we thought about this? Have we thought about how everything that we're doing right now, the lights on, the food that we get on our tables, would be affected by this in a massive way? I mean, the only, you know, the only silver lining is that also China relies on the Straits of Hormuz, you know, in a very large way.

[Tucker Carlson]

Luckily, they don't play the long game, though, so it's not a. Not a concern. I'm sure they're day traders, just like us.

[Clayton Morris]

So China just can't flip on that Siberian oil pipeline to Russia. Hey, we need instead of the 800,000 barrels a day that we normally get from you, like, let's crank it up to three. You okay with that? Putin? Do you think that they have a relationship, the brics nations have a relationship to soften this.

[Tucker Carlson]

They do now. So what? Boy, you're making me sad. So I'm gonna end on. Clayton, it's so great to see you.

[Clayton Morris]

It's great.

[Tucker Carlson]

So let me end on what I hope is a hopeful note. So both of us worked in television our whole lives were. Well, you left voluntarily because you're smarter than I am, but I was expelled like a hairball from the system. And so you've been out how long? What year did you leave?

[Clayton Morris]

2017. So eight years ago.

[Tucker Carlson]

Wow.

[Clayton Morris]

Crazy.

[Tucker Carlson]

I've been out two years. My head is starting to clear. I feel better. Yeah, I feel like a much younger man. But what's the. What's the future of that, of that business, of that medium?

[Clayton Morris]

Well, I think it's collapsing in real time. And I've. I said that while I was there. Yeah, that this idea that people are going to pay for a cable subscription in order to get their CNN or Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity, like that's dying and that audience is dying with him. I don't know if you've ever watched Fox in the afternoon. It's all ads for hip replacement or like, don't fall out of your shower stalls because you're elderly. So they know their audience, they know it's aging out. The joke back when I was at Fox was that, oh, CBS's audience is like 90. It was like 75 at the time. But I'm just being exaggerating. So now those people are in their 90s. That audience is not getting any younger. Again, I don't know anybody watching right now who's buying a cable box when they go to Xfinity or Comcast and they're, they're starting out, they're like a young couple, they're in their 20s, they want to have children. They don't even know what a cable box is. So they're going now maybe with like.

[Tucker Carlson]

You know, buy a phonograph, but not a cable box.

[Clayton Morris]

And a lot of this is like shifted over to like YouTube TV and things like that. You know, things. So, I mean, there'll be people that'll still flip through, but I think it's those era of like those massive salaries and everyone's kind of. I think that era is gone.

[Tucker Carlson]

So I think you just answered the question that's been bothering me for the past month, which is why do old people love killing so much? And I, I level people. I'm not one of those people who hates the elderly. I love the elderly. My favorite person, my dad was elderly when he died at 84. So I'm not. I've always thought we should respect our elders. My whole life I've thought that that's why I'm conservative. But in the last month, it's like every old person I come into contact with, it's like, let's just kill them. Like thoughtlessly just kill people. And it's like, you're gonna face judgment really soon. Should you really be calling for killing people in your final days here? I always think that. I never say it, but why is that? And I do think it's at least in part the result of watching this filth. And it is filth. It's.

[Clayton Morris]

It's wall to wall filth. They don't turn it off.

[Tucker Carlson]

It's worse than pornography. It's disgusting. Keith Kellogg talking about killing people. Keith Kellogg was a complete idiot. I know Keith Kellogg is like truly stupid. The idea that Keith Kellogg could have any influence over anything, it's like shocking. Totally ignorant. Just enthusiastic about killing and reckless and just, oh, not, not qualified to drive my car. And I'm like, how, who are these people and why are old people so into killing? I honestly think it's because they're watching it.

[Clayton Morris]

Yeah. And we, you and I know this to be true, which is that I think even Roger Ailes told us that the reason Fox and Friends in the morning would do so well is because the people at night would leave their TV on set to that channel and they'd wake up and it was the first thing would click on to that show and then they leave it on all day. I've heard from so many viewers over the years that are like, oh, my parents would just turn on, turn it on and they would leave it run all day. It's just kind of like a noise in the background. So every hour, doesn't matter what panel show it is, with four people sitting there on a couch or one person hosting a show when 80% of your guests are pro war. And the entire narrative all day is about how Trump is amazing and carried out the most spectacular attack on, in the Middle east since we've, since Normandy. Then they're just sucking that in. At Barnes and Noble the other day I met an old gentleman, lovely guy, and I was in the history section and he just started chatting and we just started chatting and talking to my wife and he said, yeah, I'm really concerned about Iran getting this nuclear weapon. Iran getting this nuclear weapon. And you know, and he said, do you know that Israel has a nuclear weapon?

[Tucker Carlson]

Right?

[Clayton Morris]

He said, what? I've never heard that. Is that true? And he's like, well, you know, I just watched, I just have it on the news on. They just tell me that Iran, you know, it's a, we got to be worried about Iran. So do you, do you ever hear them talking about that Israel has an entire nuclear weapons program, that JFK pushed them for inspections and then pushed and pushed and pushed Ben Gurion for inspections and then was assassinated, not saying they're related. And Eisenhower warned JFK about it. Like this goes back to the 60s. Why don't we know about this? So this guy, because he's watching this like spoon fed propaganda all day, doesn't know any of that.

[Tucker Carlson]

Clayton Morris, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, thank you. We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it. Good people. While you're here, do us a favor. Hit follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. We have real conversations, news things that actually matter. Telling the truth always. You will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell. We appreciate it. Thanks for watching.